The King & The Minotaur

Encounter a unique collection of art and performance as you navigate your way through the corridors and chambers of this surreal gallery.

The project invites you to engage with a rare piece of architecture that would otherwise be cut off from public access. Those who venture inside have only the transformed space to guide them.
A retreat from the chaos of the city - a place for introspection and investigation. Visitors can find refuge in the space or they can choose to be challenged by it. Works of art and music lay hidden within The Labyrinth, waiting to be discovered. These works, including contemporary dance, film and sculpture are integral to the structure of the piece. To complement this feast for the senses, the Labyrinth will be showcasing The Liquid Room, providing the voyagers with a drinks experience like no other in central London.

Admission
Entry to The Labyrinth will be granted to those bearing the crest of the Minotaur. On arrival the guest must seek out the sustenance of The Liquid Room to help them continue their journey. Crests can be purchased via the Finish button.
*NOTE - No Step Free Access*

Last Performnace Ends 10pm
Last Entry 11pm

Dates
The King & The Minotaur will run for four consecutive weekends throughout April. Exact dates available via Finish button.

Location
The King & The Minotaur is located in King's Cross between St Pancras Station and Mornington Crescent Tube. It can be found in the courtyard between numbers 7 and 9 St Pancras Way, NW1 0PB. You can view a google map of the location HERE.

Babel Studios

Huge thanks to Babel Studios for all of their help with this project, especially their provision of the stable, The King & The Minotaur literally could not have happened without them.

Babel Studios Ltd is a not for profit enterprise providing space for people wishing to work in a relaxed, creative environment.

At the heart of this project is communication. Rather than just being a place to work, Babel Studios is a space for debate, collaboration and inspiration. Take a look HERE.

Lucy May

Recent work takes the artist's concept of Suburban Baroque further into the territory of DIY customising projects and home crafts. The artist is willingly seduced by the language of consumerism, awed by its aspirations of material wealth and abundance and genuinely moved by its ersatz versions of the authentic. The work presents a deliberately overwrought and fantastical response to such ideas of indulgence and artificial excess

Ellie Doney

Simon Dara

I am always surprised how fertile and rich my everyday experience is and in many ways, I feel overwhelmed by it. My work has become a record of this experience.

What emerges from the process is a working method where bursts of emotional energy are channelled into an ongoing visual narrative.

By taking inspiration from comic books, fresco's, temple shrines, flora and fauna, I paint, draw and sculpt an estranged autobiography where anamorphism and time travel blend domestic reality with fantasy. This allows me to reconsider my relationship with people, places and objects.

Ben Thompson

Self Erayzer

th Hive, Connectivity Isolation Collagist, Primitive Educated, Depressive Anxietist, Untouchable Textures, Manipulation Decollagist, Comparison of Perception, Repitition too ay Constant, Time~re~time~re~time Repition, VidEO Film nd Sound Recordist, Internal nd External Self nd Vicinity, Creation of ay Current Organic Relic, Removal nd Appliance of Personality, Removal nd Appliance of Gender Specifics, Four Points Filtered Through ay Central Output, Loss of Inishal meen throo air ~ too translayshun, Broken~English is Proper English if Spoken by th English

Hal Watts

Sycamore, 1956

Sycamore, 1956 is made from a Sycamore tree that started growing in 1956 on the edge of a small wood in Wokingham near Reading and was cut down in November 2010 to make way for sheltered housing for the elderly. By preserving the original features of the material the object becomes more than the form that the designer gives it and takes on the story of the tree, showing us that the various marks on the wood are a record of the tree's life. Soon you find yourself imagining what used to fill the negative spaces around the chair.

Adam Smith

Golden Orb Spider Farm (Blown glass, preserved golden orb spider)

Golden Orb Spider farm is a product for the near future. Regenerative tissue engineering is now able to create human organs ranging from hearts to wombs in a laboratory. Scaffolds for this tissue growth are formed from polymers or silk. The spider farm provides the ultimate 'fertility insurance' gift for the ambitious woman who wants to delay having children. Harvesting the rare and high quality golden orb silk to be used in the manufacture of a spare uterus being an endeavour of commitment and love towards ones yet-to-be-conceived offspring. Adam Smith is a designer who graduated in Architecture at the Royal College of Art in 2010. He is currently in architectural practice and continues to design and make things smaller than buildings.

Neil Ayling

Neil is interested in defining sculptural aesthetics of the cityscape, through a visual and physical editing process. Through this editing process he wishes to isolate and focus on specific fragments of architecture to elevate the inherent sculptural compositions they possess. The fragment acts as a snap shot of something else, the whole, which exists in the real physical World. Using an image as the fragment it occupies a given space dislocated from its whole but at the same time is a virtual representation. The image as a fragment also enables me to explore it, to edit and manipulate it. The image manipulation in his practice is often one of cutting and folding. Using a 2 dimensional image, he can cut and fold it to create a new 3 dimensional form, one that is dictated by the image but also finds its own presence in space, in the real physical World. He is not interesting in creating a pastiche. 'The image for me is a template which dictates form but at the same time is a visual reference.'

Adam Graddon

Adam Graddon I am currently drawn to the way we interpret and read objects, the hidden symbolism, sings and heritage that the everyday and familiar carry. The work uses everyday objects, are presented together in an unfamiliar manner as if they are part of an experiment. What is taking place is not entirely clear and is left open to a variety of possibilities. Everyday objects are used as triggers and props to evoke and question the reading of possible narratives of symbolism and superstition by the viewer evoking the story teller in us all. "Beau comme la rencontre fortuite d'un parapluie et d'une machine a coudre sur une table de dissection" Lautreamont

Hackney Colliery Band

Hackney Colliery Band is a nine-piece brass band usually found playing hip-hop and 'brass funk', or venturing into the sound worlds of jazz and ska... Collectively run, the project has several composers and arrangers, and the HCB sound is a collaboration between all the musicians involved.

Leah Capaldi

'I respond to the influence our culture has over the way we view ourselves in relation to themes of exploitation, power and desire. I continue to challenge existing beliefs and stereotypes within a gendered, political and cultural context. I explore this in relation to social reference.

I am currently exploring the boundaries between tc and sculpture. I work primarily with tc as I believe it encourages an active relationship with the viewer, an immediacy and intimacy that sculpture alone cannot reflect.

In being self aware I understand the object of the gaze and I return it with a punch.'

Twitter and Facebook

To keep up to date with all of the news at The King & The Minotaur check out our Facebook and Twitter by using the links opposite.

Trumpet Creepers

Trumpet Creepers is an improvisation ensemble made up of graduates of the London Contemporary Dance School. The group first came together for a show at the Hannah Barry Gallery in 2008. We work in the arena of total performance, integrating voice and movement to create peculiar, playful and provocative performances. The group varies from one occasion to the next. We advocate performances happening in all sorts of contexts: indoors and out, intimate and large-scale, ticketed and impromptu. Besides theatres we have performed in windows, cafes, corridors, car parks, houses, halls, galleries, churches, courtyards, the street, an old pub, a lecture room and a Spiegel tent.

The Creators - Wignall & Moore

Established in autumn 2010, Wignall & Moore share a love of Sculpture and Materiality. They combine their skills with experience at Heatherwick Studios and training at the Royal College of Art to create thoughtful design solutions working on national and international design competitions. They intend to use The King & The Minotaur to launch a series of architectural works showcasing London’s spectacular vacant spaces, allowing reuse and reconnection between people and architecture.

Prior to establishing their studio in London's Kings Cross the members of the partnership have amassed a range of awards and projects including the RIBA Silver Medal Commendation, RCA Sustain Award, Royal Academy of the Arts exhibition, V&A Wasted Pavilion, #12DG Events and Kingswood Road Restoration. Examples of previous work can be found at WWW.JAMESWIGNALL.COM

Peter J-Laugesen

The fox, the gnome, the power station and the snail.

The human exploitation and attempts to control nature- through a symbolic, experimental though still linear narrative I attempt to tell a story on this rather serious subject, without being "lecturing". It will involve; symbolic images such as the ring- a symbol used to portray eternity, the constant repeating cycle of life. Mechanised Animals acting out scenarios as manipulated by man. A singing garden gnome- gnome meaning earth dweller and is a protector of the earth. Various strands through the story will depict nature starting at a harmonious unexploited state, progressing to an ordered, controlled and eventually exploited state. The technique used will be live action digital manipulation as well as stop frame.

Tickets

To purchase a Crest of the Minotaur simply follow the link opposite. Crests cost £7 including booking fee and are currently available for each of the dates below;

Last Performnace Ends 10pm
Last Entry 11pm

Thursday 21st April 7pm-12am
Friday 22nd April 7pm-12am
Saturday 23rd April 7pm-12am

Royal Wedding Weekend

Thursday 28th April 7pm-12am
Friday 29th April 7pm-12am
Saturday 30th April 7pm-12am

*NOTE - No Step Free Access*

The Readers

Specialists in keynote, foreground and electro-acoustic sounds. The Readers have revisited previous corrupted solutions, wrapped them in tinfoil, and thrown them across the great wall of matter and nonsense. After such a transformative journey The Readers attempt to catch them on the other side, albeit with buttery fingers. As a response to the impossibility of a decision, The Readers decide to ignore significance, discipline, language and reasoning. Music, lyrics, figures of cultural significance and politically charged issues are shaped into a bundle of candy floss. This will melt as soon as it hits the tongue, and eventually, if eating lots of it, very possibly make one sick.

Amy Carter

My work is centred around myths, legends and storytelling. Working in a magical realist style I reinterpret and appropriate myth, juxtaposing the real and the fantastic to create strange, liminal worlds that often explore the duality of the seductive and the grotesque exposing the darker side of human nature.

Charlotte Jarvis and James Read

ArtForEating

The practice is broadly participatory, creating environments for the examination of social interactions. The work seeks to manipulate its participants by making the boundary between the real and the simulated ambiguous and testing the boundaries between product and performance, science and the creative, design and art.

Projects have been exhibited at The Barbican, The Battersea Arts Centre,The Arches in Glasgow, The Edinburgh Fringe Festival and Edinburgh International Festival.

www.artforeating.co.uk

David Ibbett

David Ibbett is a composer and improviser of contemporary music. In a project devised especially for the 'Minotaur event, David will be composing live soundscapes from the heart of the labyrinth.